AUSTRALIAN ITEMS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16908, 23 March 1929, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN ITEMS

A loss of £230,263 on the year’s operations of the Postmaster-General’s Department was announced in the .Federal Parliament at Canberra.

Day and night sittings of the N.S.W. Legislature have caused the Premier, Mr Bavin, to become very worn and weary, and it is expected he will take a health trip to England after the Premiers’ conference in May. , Mr. Bruce, Federal Prime Minister, presides at a conference of shipping interests on the question of freights soon after Easter. Subsequently he attends the Premiers’ Conference at Melbourne, at which transport and power problems will be discussed.

One of the finest motor boats in Sydney harbor, owned by Air. F. S. Young, was blown up at its moorings by gelignite. Pieces of the launch flew in all directions. Alany houses in the vicinity were shaken bv the explosion. A man has been detained by the police in connection with the affair.

The New South Wales Parliament is considering tho imposition of a dumping duty on glucose, which is being shipped to Sydney in large quantities and sold at less .than tho price in New York. Thirty-one unions, apart from _ the Australian Council of Trade Unions, have been summoned to an allied trades conference in Melbourne on Wednesday next to consider the timber trade -dispute. It is expected that the conference will be against expansion of the strike, and will endeavor to limit it to the smallest possible compass, and will make an appeal throughout Australia for strike funds.

Unassociated pits in tho coal mining area 1 of New South Wales are reported to be getting morp and more orders for coal every day, in consequence of the pits owned by members of the Collieries Association ‘closing down. They are working a full nuota of men. Three of the four Do Havilafid planes tor West Australian Airways have been tested at Hendon, England, and the fourth is nearly ready. ’Die machines were found capable of non-stop flights of 525 miles at 130 miles per hour, fully loaded.